


The Banjo-Playing Siren of the Swamp

by Your_Panties



Series: The Boys of the Wastelands [1]
Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-28
Updated: 2016-03-28
Packaged: 2018-05-29 16:50:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6384592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Your_Panties/pseuds/Your_Panties
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>this is an origin story for my crowman oc, aftershock. <br/>he is the banjo-playing siren of the swamp.</p>
    </blockquote>





	The Banjo-Playing Siren of the Swamp

**Author's Note:**

> this is an origin story for my crowman oc, aftershock.   
> he is the banjo-playing siren of the swamp.

The siren strummed at his banjo, the tune melancholy against the fog rolling in from the Citadel’s desert. Crows cawed above him and Aftershock licks what little lips he has, sores rotting away the flesh. Hungry, as always, he reaches into the short tree above him, snagging a crow by leg and snapping it’s neck, plucking the feathers with arthritic fingers and poking them into his cloak. He sinks his ragged teeth into the tough flesh, the meat juicy and soft, blood running down his chin. 

The bog was always quiet, save for the cawing of crows and the occasional whoop of a fellow Crowman finding a sprout deep in the dirt. Aftershock always smiled at that as best he could, joy of finding life in nothing but a drowning sea of fog. The skin of his lips rotting away and his teeth hanging by threads it didn’t make it a very attractive smile but it was enough to get scavengers to stop, ask favors, let Shock ask his riddles and hopefully, when they got it wrong, give him a good meal. 

Aftershock didn’t much mind eating people but, boy, people sure did mind him eating people. Crow just got stale after a while. Literally. The longer you let a crow sit, the harder the meat got. Not as good as people. People didn’t get tough: not if you ate them quick enough. Most Crowmen didn’t understand just how much better people were then crows. “I'm teary-eyed but never cry. Silver-tongued, but never lie. Double-winged, but never fly. Air-cooled, but never dry… What am I?” He mutters to himself, arranging the teeth from his meals in a scattered order.   
He stops, staring out at the bog for a moment, the croak of bullfrogs the only sound. “What am I?” 

“A cannibal’s whatcha are!” One of the crows says, it’s beak tinged in red.   
“Yes, thank you.” Aftershock sighs, picking at one of his many sores. The crow nods, spreading it’s wings and setting off to fly. Aftershock had already had his crow quota for the day. Next quota to fill, people. He chuckles to himself, strumming at his banjo strings again, trying to draw in weary travellers. One thing he knew, better than others, was how to catch people. How to catch their eye, their tongue, riddle their mind so that they cannot leave without knowing the answer. 

He was good at that: riddling. The one thing he could do well, other than eating people, the crows had said. Good thing too. He didn’t talk much on account of his ugly mouth. Only played his banjo with arthritic fingers to attract scavengers who may make a good meal. He knew that scavengers were attracted to his banjo: a mysterious sound amongst fog in which you could hardly see your hand in front of you. A sound of any kind that wasn’t a scream was nice in this boggy wasteland, he knew. 

Screams in the bog meant one thing: cannibals. Travellers didn’t want cannibals. Travellers wanted nice cozy houses with elderly couples that made them hot chocolate and apple pie. Only thing out here was crows so that was tough luck for travellers. Tough luck for travellers, good luck for me. “Free meals and new teeth, hopefully less rotted…” He mumbles half to himself, the pang of his banjo against his chest familiar in this death trap of a land. The other Crowmen knew him by his tattoos, long wings extending from his shoulder blades to his fingertips, long delicate feathers curving around his bones. 

Aftershock was as malnourished as the rest of them, the sands only edible to plants and centipedes. Nothing grew here, not since They left the soil as dry and dying and the rest of them. The Crowmen had made their home here and Aftershock had followed, picking off the weakest Crowmen first, making it look like accidents and the like. They’d figured it out soon, too quick for his liking, and he’d had to pick off travellers instead. Crowmen didn’t eat Crowmen, they’d said. They eat crows, the occasional traveler, bugs. 

“Where must we go, we who wander this wasteland, in search of our better selves?” Aftershock smiles as best he can, the quote flowing from his throat like ambrosia of the gods. He had believed once, in a god, that watched out for him, over him. He had long given up hope a god would watch for him. No god was out here in these hellish deserts, no gods but their own, not even their own would save them from this trap. 

Aftershock narrows his eyes, swollen against the dimming sun. He watches quietly as a shadow appears in the distance, its engine quaking the land around it. Dinner, he hums, still singing his song. The scavenger stops, peering over at Aftershock and his leaning shack, bones and feathers and shiny things hanging from trees studded with crows and moss. Sweeping the teeth of past meals off the crooked table with his foot, he grins at the visitor. 

“Looking for anything in particular, my friend?” The scavenger stares at him with an apprehensive glare, the bones in the trees putting him on edge. “G’t any food?” The man asks, his thin frame much like Aftershock’s own, his ribs peeking through his threadbare coat. “No, mate. Ain’t got nothin’.” His dry windblown eyes burned, red and curious, at his new encounter. “Ain’t got nothin’ but a riddle…” He looks down at his cracked and bleeding fingers, “Care to try?” The traveller sat, his feet tucked underneath him, looking up eagerly at the Crowman. “Sure. Aft’r that, c’n we look fer food?” 

Aftershock laughs, a grotesquely hollow grin on his ragged cheeks. “Yes, my fellow, we may look fer food. Now, This riddle cannot be solved, do not even try, no matter how hard you look, all you will get is dry eye.Taking the 1st, 2nd, and so on, letters of the lines will not suffice, and, for once, there will be no mention of my favorite vice.vDo not attempt to seek hidden meaning in the words I say, the words and meaning that you see are as plain as day. Do not search for relations as there are none to be found, and by the rules of no game, am I hereby bound. Really, truly, no solution will there be by my end, for I am one for whom tradition must and will bend. Who am I?”


End file.
